AIA Dunbar Fellow seeks next-generation apartment buildings

Rosemary is fortunate to be the inaugural winner of the AIA Dunbar Fellowship, awarded in 2017, and is currently undertaking a structured program of research to investigate how Australia’s next-generation apartment buildings might benefit from East-West knowledge transfer?

The AIA Dunbar Fellowship

Established in 2017 to honour the legacy and memory of the late Professor Jennifer Taylor, architect and widely-published scholar and critic of international standing, the Fellowship is awarded to ‘undertake a program of study and/or research in Asia and / or the islands of the South Pacific Ocean (excluding Australia and New Zealand) that will, in the view of the Australian Institute of Architects, contribute to the advancement of architecture and its practice in Australia.

Rosemary’s project

“In order to explore strategies that can influence the emergence of potent climate-based architecture in Australia for both private and public benefit, I aim to identify the ways some visionary architects working in South East Asia have adapted classical tropical design principles to produce vibrant modern variants of residential and mixed-use apartment buildings.

I am particularly interested in how architectural strategies that deliver liveability and affordability for occupants, value for developers, and public amenity, are promoted in the project.

Elegant solutions are often arrived at after much input and debate. The purpose of this project is to understand motivators and drivers for non-standard design options for apartment buildings being brought to fruition.

I have visited architects practising in the high density cities of Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Bangkok and Singapore, and observed many of the buildings they have designed. During interviews we explored six main themes: project drivers and vision; contextual design principles; role of policy and standards; incentives; approaches to ‘expectation gaps’ and what constitutes design success for them.

My findings will be available in forthcoming public lectures and articles.”